Let Me Call You Sweetheart

  His other home, a modern two-story structure overlooking the ocean on Long Beach Island, was where his wife resided year round. Neighbors there told the investigators that during the summer Barney was around a lot, had always spent a good amount of time fishing on his twenty-three-foot Chris-Craft, and that his other hobby was carpentry. His workshop was in his garage.

  A couple of neighbors said his wife had invited them in to show off the massive white-oak hutch Barney had made to house their entertainment center last year. It seemed to be his pride and joy.

  The investigators knew that Barney had to have had solid evidence against Jimmy Weeks to back up his attempted plea bargain. They also knew that if they didn’t find it quickly, Jimmy Weeks’ people would ferret it out and destroy it.

  Despite the screeching protests of his widow, who cried that Barney was a victim, and that this was her home even if poor Barney’s name was on it, and that they had no right to destroy it, they took apart everything, including the oak hutch that was nailed to the wall of the television room.

  When they had ripped the wood from the plaster, they found themselves looking at a safe large enough to house the records of a small office.

  As the media gathered outside, television cameras recorded the arrival on the scene of a retired safecracker now on the payroll of the United States government. Fifteen minutes later the safe was opened, and shortly afterwards, at 4:15 P.M. that afternoon, U.S. Attorney Royce received a phone call from Les Howard.

  A second set of books for Weeks Enterprises had been found, as well as day-at-a-glance date books going back fifteen years, in which Barney had chronicled Jimmy’s appointments along with his own notations about the purpose of the meetings and what was discussed.

  A delighted Royce was told that there were also shoe boxes with copies of receipts for high-tag items, including furs and jewelry and cars for Jimmy’s various girlfriends, which Barney had flagged “No sales tax paid.”

  “It’s a bonanza, a treasure trove,” Howard assured Royce. “Barney sure must have heard that old adage, ‘Treat your friend as though he may become your enemy.’ He has to have been preparing since day one to barter his way out of prison by throwing Jimmy to us if they ever got indicted.”

  The judge had adjourned the trial until the next morning rather than start with a new witness at four o’clock. Another break, Royce thought. After he hung up the phone, a smile continued to linger on his lips as he savored the splendid news. He said aloud, “Thanks, Barney, I always knew you’d come through.” Then he sat in silence while he considered his next move.

  Martha Luce, Jimmy’s personal bookkeeper, was scheduled to be a defense witness. They already had her sworn statement that the records she had kept were totally accurate and the only set that existed. Given the choice of turning government witness in exchange for immunity from a long prison sentence, Royce decided that it shouldn’t be too hard to convince Ms. Luce where her best interests lay.

  82

  Jason Arnott had awakened late on Sunday morning with flulike symptoms and decided not to go to the Catskill house as planned. Instead he spent the day in bed, getting up only long enough to prepare some light food for himself. It was at times such as this that he regretted not having a live-in housekeeper.

  On the other hand, he thoroughly enjoyed the privacy of having the house to himself without someone underfoot. He brought books and newspapers to his room and spent the day reading, in between sipping orange juice and dozing.

  Every few hours, however, he compulsively pulled out the FBI flyer to reassure himself that no one could possibly tie him to that grainy caricature of a picture.

  By Monday evening he was feeling much better and had completely convinced himself that the flyer was not a threat. He reminded himself that even if an FBI agent showed up at the door to subject him to routine questioning because he had been one of the guests at a Hamilton party, they would never be able to connect him to the theft.

  Not with that picture. Not with his phone records. Not with a single antique or painting in this house. Not with the most scrupulous financial check. Not even with the reservation at the hotel in Washington the weekend of the robbery at the Hamilton home, since he had used one of his fake identities when he checked in.

  There was no question. He was safe. He promised himself that tomorrow, or certainly by Wednesday, he would drive up to the Catskills and spend a few days enjoying his treasures.

  Jason could not know that the FBI agents had already obtained a court order allowing them to tap his phone and were now quietly surveying his house. He could not know that from now on he wouldn’t make a single move without being observed and without being followed.

  83

  Driving north out of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, Kerry was caught in the first surge of rush hour traffic. It was twenty of five when she pulled her car out of the garage on Twelfth Street. It was five past six when she turned into her driveway and saw Geoff’s Volvo parked in front of the other door of the two-car garage.

  She had called home from the car phone as she was leaving the garage, and had been only partially reassured to talk to both Robin and Alison, the sitter. She had warned them both not to go out under any circumstances and not to open the door for anyone until she got home.

  Seeing Geoff’s car made her realize that Alison’s car was gone. Had Geoff come because of a problem? Kerry turned off the engine and lights, scrambled from her car, slammed the door behind her and ran toward the house.

  Robin had obviously been watching for her. The front door opened as she raced up the steps.

  “Rob, is anything wrong?”

  “No, Mom, we’re fine. When Geoff got here he told Alison it was all right to go ahead home, that he’d wait for you.” Robin’s face became worried. “That was okay, wasn’t it? I mean letting Geoff in.”

  “Of course.” Kerry hugged Robin. “Where is he?”

  “In here,” Geoff said as he appeared at the door of the kitchen. “I thought that having had one Dorso home-cooked meal on Saturday night, you might be game for another tonight. Very simple menu. Lamb chops, a green salad and baked potato.”

  Kerry realized she was both tense and hungry. “Sounds wonderful,” she sighed as she unbuttoned her coat.

  Geoff quickly moved to take it from her. It seemed natural that as he put it over one arm, he slid the other arm around her and kissed her cheek. “Hard day at the factory?”

  For a brief moment she let her face rest in the warm spot beneath his neck. “There have been easier ones.”

  Robin said, “Mom, I’m going upstairs to finish my homework, but I do think since I’m the one in danger, I should know exactly what’s going on. What did Dr. Smith say when you saw him?”

  “Finish your homework and let me unwind for a few minutes. I promise a full report later.”

  “Okay.”

  Geoff had turned on the gas fire in the family room. He had brought in sherry and had glasses ready alongside the bottle on the coffee table there. “I hope I’m not making myself too much at home,” he apologized.

  Kerry sank onto the couch and kicked off her shoes. She shook her head and smiled. “No, you’re not.”

  “I’ve got news for you, but you go first. Tell me about Smith.”

  “I’d better tell you about Frank Green first. I told him I was leaving the office early this afternoon, and I told him why.”

  “What did he say?”

  “It’s what he didn’t say that hung in the air. But in fairness to him, even though I think he was choking on the words, he told me that he hoped I didn’t think he would rather see an innocent man in prison than be politically embarrassed himself.” She shrugged. “The problem is, I wish I could believe him.”

  “Maybe you can. How about Smith?”

  “I got to him, Geoff. I know I did. The guy is cracking up. If he doesn’t start telling the truth, my next move is to get Barbara Tompkins to file a stalking complaint against him. The prospect of
that shocked him right down to his toes, I could tell. But I think rather than risk having it happen, he’ll come through and we’ll get some answers.”

  She stared into the fire, watching the flames lick at the artificial logs. Then she added slowly, “Geoff, I told Smith that we had two witnesses who saw his car that night. I threw at him that maybe the reason he was so anxious to see Skip convicted was because he was the one who killed Suzanne. Geoff, I think he was in love with her, not as a daughter, maybe not even just as a woman, but as his creation.”

  She turned to him. “Think about this scenario. Suzanne is sick of having her father around her so much, of having him show up wherever she goes. Jason Arnott told me that much, and I believe him. So on the evening of the murder, Dr. Smith drives out to see her. Skip has come and gone, just as he claimed. Suzanne is in the foyer, arranging flowers from another man. Don’t forget, the card was never found. Smith is angry, hurt and jealous. It isn’t just Skip he has to contend with; now it’s Jimmy Weeks as well. In a fit of rage he strangles Suzanne, and because he’s always hated Skip, he takes the card, makes up the story of Suzanne being afraid of Skip and becomes the prosecution’s principal witness.

  “This way Skip, his rival for Suzanne’s attention, is not only punished by spending at least thirty years in prison, but the police don’t look elsewhere for a suspect.”

  “It makes sense,” Geoff said slowly. “But then why would Jimmy Weeks be so worried about your reopening the case?”

  “I’ve thought about that too. And, in fact, you could make an equally good argument that he was involved with Suzanne. That they quarreled that night, and he murdered her. Another scenario is that Suzanne told him about the land in Pennsylvania that Skip had optioned. Could Jimmy have inadvertently told her about the highway going through and then have killed her to keep her from telling Skip? He picked up those options for next to nothing, I gather.”

  “You’ve done a lot of thinking today, lady,” Geoff said. “And you’ve made a damn good case for either scenario. Did you happen to listen to the news on the way home?”

  “My brain needed a rest. I listened to the station with the golden oldies. Otherwise I’d have gone mad in that traffic.”

  “You made a better choice. But if you had listened to a news station, you’d know that the stuff Barney Haskell was planning to swap for a plea bargain is now in the U.S. attorney’s hands. Apparently Barney kept records like nobody else ever kept records. Tomorrow, if Frank Green is smart, instead of resisting your investigation he’ll request access to any records they can find of jewelry Weeks bought in the months before Suzanne’s murder. If we can tie him to stuff like the zodiac bracelet, we’ve got proof Smith was a liar.” He stood up. “I would say, Kerry McGrath, that you have sung for your supper. Wait here. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”

  Kerry curled up on the couch and sipped the sherry, but even with the fire the room felt somehow less than comfortable. A moment later she got up and walked into the kitchen. “Okay if I watch you play chef? It’s warmer in here.”

  * * *

  Geoff left at nine o’clock. When the door closed behind him, Robin said, “Mom, I’ve got to ask you. This guy Dad is defending? From what you tell me, Dad’s not going to win the case. Is that right?”

  “Not if all the evidence we believe has been found is what it’s cracked up to be.”

  “Will that be bad for him?”

  “No one likes to lose a case, but no, Robin, I think the best thing that could ever happen to your father is to see Jimmy Weeks convicted.”

  “You’re sure Weeks is the one who’s trying to scare me?”

  “Yes, I’m about as sure as I can get. That’s why the sooner we can find out his connection to Suzanne Reardon, the sooner he won’t have any reasons to try to scare us off.”

  “Geoff’s a defense attorney, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Would Geoff ever defend a guy like Jimmy Weeks?”

  “No, Robin. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t.”

  “I don’t think he would either.”

  At nine-thirty, Kerry remembered that she’d promised to report to Jonathan and Grace about her meeting with Dr. Smith. “You think he may break down and admit he lied?” Jonathan asked when she reached him.

  “I think so.”

  Grace was on the other extension. “Let’s tell Kerry my news, Jonathan. Kerry, today I’ve either been a good detective or made an awful fool of myself.”

  Kerry had not thought it important to bring up Arnott’s name on Sunday when she told Jonathan and Grace about Dr. Smith and Jimmy Weeks. When she heard what Grace had to say about him, she was glad that neither one of them could see the expression on her face.

  Jason Arnott. The friend who was constantly with Suzanne Reardon. Who, despite his seeming frankness, had struck Kerry as being too posed to be true. If he was a thief, if, according to the FBI flyer Grace described, he was also a murder suspect, where did he fit in the conundrum surrounding the Sweetheart Murder Case?

  84

  Dr. Charles Smith sat for long hours after he forced Kerry to leave. “Stalker!” “Murderer!” “Liar!” The accusations she had thrown at him made him shudder with revulsion. It was the same revulsion he felt when he looked at a maimed or scarred or ugly face. He could feel his very being tremble with the need to change it, to redeem it, to make things right. To find for it the beauty that his skilled hands could wrest from bone and muscle and flesh.

  In those instances the wrath he felt had been directed against the fire or the accident or the unfair blending of genes that had caused the aberration. Now his wrath was directed at the young woman who had sat here in judgment of him.

  “Stalker!” To call him a stalker because a brief glimpse of the near perfection he had created gave him pleasure! He wished he could have looked into the future and known that this was the way Barbara Tompkins would express her thanks. He would have given her a face all right—a face with skin that collapsed into wrinkles, eyes that drooped, nostrils that flared.

  Suppose McGrath took Tompkins to the police to file that complaint. She had said she would, and Smith knew she meant it.

  She had called him a murderer. Murderer! Did she really think that he could have done that to Suzanne? Burning misery raced through him as he lived again the moment when he had rung the bell, over and over, then turned the handle and found the door unlocked.

  And Suzanne there, in the foyer, almost at his feet. Suzanne—but not Suzanne. That distorted creature with bulging, hemorrhaged eyes, and gaping mouth and protruding tongue—that was not the exquisite creature he had created.

  Even her body appeared awkward and unlovely, crumpled as it was, the left leg twisted under the right one, the heel of her left shoe jabbing her right calf, those fresh red roses scattered over her, a mocking tribute to death.

  Smith remembered how he had stood over her, his only thought an incongruous one—that this is how Michelangelo would have felt had he seen his Pietà broken and defaced as it had been by the lunatic who attacked it years ago in St. Peter’s.

  He remembered how he had cursed Suzanne, cursed her because she had not heeded his warnings. She had married Reardon against his wishes. “Wait,” he had urged her. “He’s not good enough for you.”

  “In your eyes, no one will ever be good enough for me,” she had shouted back.

  He had endured the way they looked at each other, the way their hands clasped across the table, the way they sat together, side by side on the couch, or with Suzanne on Reardon’s lap in the big, deep chair, as he had seen them when he had looked through the window at night.

  To have to endure all that had been bad enough, but it was too much when Suzanne became restless and began seeing other men, none of them worthy of her, and then came to him, asking for favors, saying “Charles, you must let Skip think you bought me this . . . and this . . . and this . . .”

  Or she would say, “Doctor, why are you so ups
et? You told me I should have all the good times I’ve missed. Well, I’m having them. Skip works too hard. He isn’t fun. You take risks when you operate. I’m just like you. I take risks too. Now remember, Doctor Charles, you’re a generous daddy.” Her impudent kiss, flirting with him, sure of her power, of his tolerance.

  Murderer? No, Skip was the murderer. As he stood over Suzanne’s body, Smith had known exactly what had happened. Her loutish husband had come home to find Suzanne with flowers from another man, and he had exploded. Just as I would, Smith had thought when his eye fell on the card half hidden by Suzanne’s body.

  And then, standing there over her, a whole scenario had played itself out in his mind. Skip, the jealous husband—a jury might be lenient with a man who killed his wife in a moment of passion. He might get off with a light sentence. Or maybe even no sentence at all.

  I won’t let that happen, he had vowed. Smith remembered how he had closed his eyes, blotting out the ugly, distorted face in front of him and, instead, seeing Suzanne in all her beauty. Suzanne, I promise you that!

  It had not been hard to keep the promise. All he had to do was take the card that had come with the flowers, then go home and wait for the inevitable call that would tell him that Suzanne, his daughter, was dead.

  When the police had questioned him, he had told them that Skip was insanely jealous, that Suzanne feared for her life, and, obeying the last request she made of him, he claimed he had given her all the pieces of jewelry that Skip had questioned.

  No, let Ms. McGrath say all she might want. The murderer was in jail. And he would stay there.

  It was almost ten o’clock when Charles Smith got up. It was all over. He couldn’t operate anymore. He no longer wanted to see Barbara Tompkins. She disgusted him. He went into the bedroom, opened the small safe in the closet and took out a gun.